METRO

Just as language is a tool for writing and citizenship is a tool of identity, so too are plans, sections and elevations tools for the construction of space. The precision of the tools is important. Embossing leaves a trace. Folding and pleating undermines space. Copy and paste results in slippages, accidents, near-misses.

The archaeological dig transposes a major French artefact, the Elysee Palace onto Saint-Denis’ Town Hall. Using the language acquired in Act III (copy/paste; stitch, fold, pleat), the new Metro is copied from the original onto the land.

This is a deliberately meandering project, similar in many ways to the way identity ‘works’ through time, history, space and place. In this project, I have multiple identities: weaver, botanist, forger, hacker.

The drawings investigate five absurd ways someone can acquire citizenship.

Spaces were constructed through the acts of weaving, stitching, slicing, layering and cutting. The project intention has been to highlight the absurdities, hardships and histories of the migration/immigration experience between France and Reunion, and to make work that speaks to the disparities of identity, power, politics and citizenship not just in France, but across the globe. An architecture of the Diaspora. Diasporic form.